


Edges

by aries_taurus



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Angst, Episode Tag, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Season7, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-28
Updated: 2018-01-28
Packaged: 2019-03-10 14:31:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13503519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aries_taurus/pseuds/aries_taurus
Summary: There’s a scuffle of noise, feet on broken glass (footsteps, those are footsteps) coming his way. His right hand moves towards his holster but at the last second, he remembers losing his gun somewhere during the fight. He has to get up. He has to be ready to fight. He can’t stay down (dead… down means dead).





	Edges

**Author's Note:**

> I hope the formattion comes out ok because I'm working with a mostly dead laptop...  
> Word onlne and copy-paste... not fun.  
> No beta, first art... rushing to post before the thing crashes again... I will fix issues later I promise.
> 
> Tag to 7.22 that morphed into a 7.22 to 7.25 tag.

* * *

* * *

 

 

* * *

 

 

When Steve’s sure Campbell’s dead and that there are no other imminent threats, he relaxes a bit, lets himself breathe. Only, the moment he does, he’s hit by a swift wave of intense vertigo and the room tilts violently around him. He swallows thickly, tasting blood. His legs begin to shake and he sits abruptly on the floor, catching his weight on his left arm but it doesn’t help with the dizziness. He’s even starting to feel a little faint. He sits back a bit more, getting his right hand on the floor too. He takes a few deep breaths, glancing around the room as he pants, trying to make sure no one’s sneaking up on him but the spinning only increases and blackness starts to edge his field of vision. 

He feels his left arm give out and he lets himself drop onto the floor till he’s flat on his back but it still feels like the whole world is trying to flip on its axis around him. 

He lies there, trying the get his breath back and not quite succeeding, waiting for the spinning to stop, for the pain to drop to a more manageable level. His chest, back and head hurt like a motherfucker. He’s pretty damned sure the rib he cracked when that bullet hit his vest is pretty damn well broken now. Pressing his hand over the throbbing spot to try and hold it together isn’t really helping. 

There’s a scuffle of noise, feet on broken glass (footsteps, those are footsteps) coming his way. His right hand moves towards his holster but at the last second, he remembers losing his gun somewhere during the fight. He has to get up. He has to be ready to fight. He can’t stay down (dead… down means dead). 

He plants a hand on the floor and pushes, sitting up with a harsh grunt but the room blurs and fuzzes before his eyes. Fight. He has to… fight (can’t give up, no, never give up). 

“Yo, it’s us, babe.”  

Danny. It’s Danny (back-up, good, safe).  

“Danny,” he breathes, dropping his chin to his chest, letting his body fall forward till he’s sitting cross legged on the dusty floor, arms in his lap.  He’s… Safe. Fight’s over (good, safe, finally).  

“Wow babe. That’s a new look on you,” Danny says.  

He looks up. His partner has a scowl on his face, looking unimpressed.  

“Somebody finally managed to hand your ass to you, huh?” Danny gripes, offering him a hand up, regardless. 

“Ouch,” Chin adds, joining Danny and offering him a hand too. 

He takes both and they haul him to his feet but as soon as he’s vertical, the whole world goes white with pain. The bright shards of light in his eyes quickly fade into alarming blackness and he loses the thread. Where… 

“Whoa!” Danny screeches loudly, next to his ear. The exclamation makes his head pound and the whole room feels like it’s swaying nauseatingly around him. He locks his knees and exhales as both Danny and Chin hold him steady. He blinks (where?). 

“M’ okay,” he says automatically, to both his partner and to Chin. He coughs, making the pain in his chest flare. He hisses with it, breath sticking in his throat. He wants to get outside, where he can _breathe_. The air’s thick with dust and death in here. Campbell’s about to empty out, he knows, and he doesn’t want to be here when it happens. “I’m… fine,” he repeats. “I just… Need some air,” he grits out. There’s static in his head. Noise. Out. He needs to… (out, out, not safe). 

“Sure, you’re fine, right. Obviously,” Danny grouses. 

Something must show on his face because other than bitch a little, Danny doesn’t argue and just grabs his arm and puts it over his shoulder, Chin taking the other side. He grunts when his busted rib shifts at the motion but he puts one foot in front of the other, gritting his teeth. 

They start to walk towards the door and whoa… everything suddenly goes hazy and double, and pitches forward. He feels fingers digging into his shoulders and arms and he knows he’d have gone down face first onto the concrete if it weren’t for his friends. 

“Hey, hey! Easy, SuperSEAL.”  It’s Danny’s voice in his ear. 

“I’m… f…fine,” he says muzzily. It’s hard to talk, hard to think.  

“Right.” Chin.  

He makes his feet move forward.  Takes a step.  

Another.  

Outside.  

Air.  

 _Breathe_. 

They make it outside and into the sun. Bright. It’s too bright (pain. Turn off the light). The world swims sickeningly and he stumbles. The motion ignites another wave of pain and it hits him full force, sparking and burning in his chest and back but it’s his head that the worst. It throbs viciously, like it’s about to split open.  

Danny and Chin try to hold him up but this time his legs fold out from under him and he goes down hard, landing in a heap, the impact making fireworks of pain ignite everywhere, exploding in his head. 

He cries out, can’t bite it back.  

There’s noise, voices, words around him, but he can’t grasp the meaning of them. Hands prop him up against something and he blinks against the harsh, blinding sunlight that makes his head pound. He doesn’t know where he is anymore. Danny pops into his field of vision and he can see his lips move, but he can’t hear the words through the cacophony buzzing and whining in his ears. He swallows heavily, feeling woozy and nauseous. The taste of blood is thick on his tongue and it sticks in the back on his throat, making him cough. He wants to throw up. He gulps. 

“Babe?” 

“M’a… all right,” he mutters through the mounting queasiness. There’s too much noise (quiet. Shh). Danny’s shape becomes two, blurred and fractured. 

“Yeah. You’re beat to shit is what you are,” he hears Danny say when the noise cuts out. He tries to get up. He has to… move. Can’t stay down (not safe. Down is dead). 

“Hey, hey, no, no. Stay still. Don’t get up, Steve, Stay down.” 

“I’m calling EMS.” Chin. That’s Chin. 

Sound warbles out and his vision goes fuzzy and distorted again, shapes becoming blobs and streaks of muted gray. He’s tired. His head hurts. He wants…to… to sleep. 

“Yo, you still here, McGarrett?” 

“Wh. wha...t” 

“Right You remember what day it is today?” 

“H.. Wh…” 

“Right. Getting blo… up and shot wasn’t en…. You had to …et your …s kicked too? How come the oth..  guy, other than being …ead, looks b…r than you, huh?” 

There’s too much noise in his head, his ears ringing. It’s… not making sense. Static. 

There are hands on him and everything is spinning, distorted, out of focus… Nausea slams into him, overwhelming. His stomach jerks hard and vomit fills his throat and mouth, gushes out, hot and sour. 

“Ah geez!” 

Warm wetness seeps into his pant leg. 

He can’t breathe, coughs, mouth full of the acrid, bitter remnants of his half- digested lunch. He groans, pain flaring in his chest. The pressure on his ribs is unbearable. He can’t hold back a cry of breathless agony. His chest is tight with pain but he can’t breathe. 

Air. He needs more air (breathe… can’t…). He gags before he can try to draw in enough oxygen, chokes on the puke still in his throat. 

He coughs again, tears leaking from his eyes. He doesn’t… can’t… where… 

“Easy, easy, get him forward, quick! Shit, he’s choking! Down. We gotta get him down on his side before he aspirates. Chin, can you… Yeah. Easy, easy, easy.” 

He feels himself moving, falling, throws an arm out to catch himself, finds only air. His head swims and it’s too much, nausea rocking his innards again.   

“I’m g’na puke,” he mumbles, belches, vomits. 

There’s a curse and a scuffle of movement in front of him but he squeezes his eyes shut, freefalling.  

“I’m…Gh..” He groans as another wave of nausea rolls through him, the urge to throw up impossible to hold back, the taste of blood in his mouth overwhelmingly strong.  

More vomit surges up and out of him, drips down his chin. 

“Augh… god that’s gross.” 

“Ff… fuck,” he curses thickly, trying to spit out the horrid taste.  

“It’s ok, babe, you’re all right. Breathe, just breathe.” 

He groans as he feels the hands all over him again, feels himself falling again but somehow he doesn’t hit the ground. He wants to say something but somehow, he can’t make the words form through the horrible nausea. He groans as his stomach clenches and purges again, bile flooding his mouth, dripping a warm path down his cheek. 

“Jesus. Where are those EMTs?” 

He blinks, coughs. He wants to tell Danny something but his mouth doesn’t work right, vomit still thick on his tongue. He coughs. Spits. 

“’D… Dny… M… hm.” 

“Here, babe, can you hear me?” 

“D… D’nny,” he mumbles, tries to lift his head up, away from the vomit. 

“Hey, hey, stay still, Steve, don’t move.” 

He coughs and pants, lifting his head up and planting a hand on the hard surface he’s lying on (street, pavement), trying to ground himself, trying to stop the wold from spinning. 

“Hey!  No no nonono! Easy, easy. Stay down, babe. Take a breath,” Danny says. 

He breathes.  

It hurts, all over, the pain and nausea drawing a deep groan out of him. 

“Yeah, I know you feel like shit, babe. You got pretty beat up.” 

“Y’ sh… see… Th’ oth’… guy, he mumbles before he retches again, straining hard to bring up nothing save a mouthful of spit and a cough but the effort is hellishly painful, the broken bone in his chest grating agonizingly. He groans, tears leaking from his eyes. 

“I saw, babe. Easy, just relax. You with me? Babe? Steven?” 

Slowly, the spinning decreases and he opens his tightly shut eyes. When did he close them? He spits the taste of bile and blood out of his mouth. He frowns. His hand is resting in something slimy and warm. He put his hand right into the middle of a pool of vomit. Ugh.  

“Hey, Steve. McGarrett. You back with me?” 

He blinks a couple times. He went somewhere? He blinks a few more times, rolls to his back, away from the reeking puddle of spew. 

“D.. Danny. Oh… Ahh…. Oww….fuck,” he hisses as the pain blossoms and sharpens all over his body, as the adrenaline fades from his bloodstream, his mind emerging from a thick fog  but somehow he’s not really with it. 

His brain feels fuzzy, muddled. He must have said so out loud because Danny answers him. His head aches, pulses with pain that makes it impossible to think. 

“You have a concussion, babe.” 

“Yeah,” he agrees thickly. “Hit  m’ head. Then… … Kick’d me in th’ face… too. Didn’t break m’ nose though… N’ couple hits. He ws jus’ merc though. Kick’d h’ ass. Fucker.” 

Danny’s blurry image chuckles (Danny. Safe). 

A darker shape materializes behind Danny. Chin. 

“EMTs are here.” 

“Finally.” 

He blinks and Danny’s gone. 

“Dny?  Wh’r…” 

“It’s okay Commander. We’re taking you to the hospital.” 

He keeps losing the thread (Who… Where? Not safe. Why?).  

People he doesn’t know ask questions that make no sense, shine lights into his eyes and put their hands all over his body. Stick needles in his arm. 

Pain. Drugs. No. _No._  

“Get… get your hands… ‘o off me. Don’ tch me.” He tries to get the IV out, before they drug him again, but someone grabs his hand, holds his arm. 

“Easy, easy, babe. Let them work. It’s okay.” 

Something snakes across his legs, his chest, tight, holding him down.  

Restraint. NO. 

“NO!” he barks, fights to get up. He has to get away. Pain explodes in his head, in his chest and he flops back down, breathing hard. He has to move. He… has to… Not… No. Not again. Never again. He’s dead. Wo Fat… No… A hole in his head. Dead (run, not safe. Fight. Run, get away. Survive, escape, resist. Evade. Fight. Flight. _Fight!_ ).  

Someone. A voice. “It’s the ambulance crew brah. EMTs? For the ride to the hospital, yeah? 

“Shh, shh, hey, relax, babe, you’re fine. It’s just the EMTs.” 

 “D… Da.. Danny.” 

“Yeah. Yeah. C’mon babe, relax, all right? Time to get back to reality, huh?” 

He grunts, pain flooding his body in waves, pulses from a cattle prod… 

“No. Not…. ‘gain,” he groans, the exhortation pain-filled and tortured, despite his best effort, full of fear. 

“HEY! McGarrett! Snap out of it!” 

He jumps, blinks and looks up, images of a damp, dark basement disintegrating into a painfully bright, sun-drenched street. Danny. Danny’s there. 

“There you are. You with me?” 

His eyes roam the scene around him, the bright sunshine almost whiting everything out, making his head throb with a splitting, pulsating ache. The air smells like burned gunpowder. There’s spent casings everywhere, a bunch of cars and trucks with bullet holes and smashed windows, a couple tarps covering bodies. 

None of it makes sense. All he sees in his head is a man on the floor, blood in his teeth, rebar in his chest. No. No. It’s … Wrong. He shot Wo Fat in the head. But… it’s not him. It’s Campbell, Lee Campbell. The merc. 

“Steve. You with me?” 

He went away? (here, stay here.)  “Y… Yeah.” 

“Good. Stay awake, and let the EMTs take care of you, all right?” 

“O.. Okay.” Danny doesn’t lie. Never (not Danny. No, not ever).  

Danny tells him they’ll take care of the scene. He doesn’t understand what that means but he nods anyway as they load him up into the ambulance. He keeps his eyes closed as everything shifts and swims around him. His mouth tastes like puke. He feels sick. He groans and coughs. Pain hits his chest like a punch, taking his breath away. 

“I’ll come find you when we’re done. You’re safe. I promise, babe. I swear.” 

“Dh...” he can only hiss out a breath, confused and lost, hurting, trying to call out to his partner. 

He hears footsteps fade away a few seconds later and he just wants to sleep, wants to escape the pain. The EMT tells him they’re taking him to Tripler and that sounds okay (hospital, safe. It’s over). Danny said it was okay. He promised. The doors close and the ambulance starts moving.  

Everything is moving and swaying dizzyingly. He swallows against the taste of bile building in his throat. 

He should be driving. Because… Because he gets carsick if he doesn’t. 

He feels sick, mouth suddenly watering. 

Everything is spinning. He feels heavy, the world black at the edges. 

He can’t… Wait… He tries to move, fingers clawing at the material under his hands but the swirling blackness swallows him whole. 

/-/-/-/ 

Something is tickling his nose. 

His nose is itching. 

He raises his right hand to rub at it and something pulls and stings on the back of it and the movement shifts something in his chest and wow, _ow,_ pain sparks all over. 

“Mhhhh… ahhhhhhhhhowww,” he mumbles. Fuck, he hurts. 

“Lie still. You have a broken rib and a nasty concussion, plus your bruises have bruises.” 

It takes a monumental effort but Steve manages to pull his lids open and find a blurry, blond-haired shape close by. It’s Danny’s shape, sitting beside the bed he’s lying in. The bed has plastic rails with... buttons? 

A hospital bed. 

The thing tickling his nose and making it itch is an oxygen cannula. 

“Danny,” he says stupidly. It’s like his tongue is too big for his mouth. His gums feel numb too. He can't feel his teeth. 

“Yeah babe. You with it? You remember what happened?” 

He blinks owlishly. He does but he doesn’t, not clearly. “I… Yeah,” he says anyway. “I think,” he amends. “Campbell,” he says, getting his left hand free of the sheet to rub at his aching head. “How long?” 

“About six hours.” 

“Right.” He shifts on the bed, heavy and stiff, rolls his shoulders and tries to sit up, hissing and grunting as his busted rib and bruised body protests the movement. He gives up, the room swimming sickeningly around him when he moves. He swallows heavily, nausea washing through him swiftly.  

He closes his eyes tightly, lies as still as he can but the queasiness grows like a swelling tide. He can taste vomit on his tongue, in the back of his throat, can smell it on his skin, vaguely recalls throwing up earlier. Saliva floods into his mouth with the still-increasing nausea and he swallows thickly. 

He really, _really_ doesn’t want to throw up with a busted rib, remembers it hurting like hell. He breathes carefully, slowly, in and out. He maybe lets a pathetic groan of utter misery escape. 

“Steve? You okay?” 

He swallows again, exhales slowly, moves his lips to answer, changes his mind when his throat thickens almost to the point of gagging and he can’t hold back another groan of discomfort. 

“I’ll take the fact you’ve just turned a lovely shade of green as a no. I’ll get the nurse,” Danny says. 

He nods, the smallest, most infinitesimal movement he can make. 

He hears footsteps and feels a presence next to him. 

“Commander McGarrett? Detective Williams tells me you’re feeling nauseous?” 

He keeps breathing in small, careful puffs, eyes closed, giving the unseen nurse a barely there nod. 

“Okay. I’m adding something to your IV that’ll help. You should feel better within a few minutes. How’s the pain, one to ten?” 

He lifts his right hand, folding his thumb against his palm. 

“Four?”  

He makes a fist, pointing his thumb to the ceiling. 

Danny chuckles. “That’s probably a seven for normal people who are not stoic idiot Navy SEALs.” 

Okay, maybe. If he doesn’t move, a four. If he does? More like an eight, like Danny suspects, but he doesn’t plan on moving, nor does he want more drugs muddling up his brain. 

“Okay. Nothing for the pain just yet,” the nurse says. 

He nods.  

That’s a mistake. His stomach lurches to the back of his throat and he can’t hold back a hiccupping gag. Oh fuck, he he’s gonna puke. He exhales shakily, mouth flooded with drool. He gulps and groans, willing his body to relax. Someone presses a plastic receptacle of some sort into his hand, probably just from the look on his face. He grabs it but he says still, praying he doesn’t actually need it, knowing he probably will. 

“Yeah, I bet that’s what he’s aiming for. He hates being drugged. Doesn’t know what’s good for him, the idiot.” 

He swallows thickly through another wave of nausea, ignores Danny’s continuing commentary but the tone of Danny’s voice makes him think he’s missing something, only it takes all of his concentration to keep the nausea at bay so it flitters right out of his head. Whatever he’s not getting will have to wait till he’s sure he won’t puke all over himself. 

“I’ll let you rest, Commander. And don’t worry, Detective. Some nausea’s normal with a concussion. Just use the call button if there’s anything else.” 

“Oh, I know, ma’am. I’ll keep an eye on him.” 

He’d object to being spoken about like he isn’t there but protesting means speaking, and speaking still isn’t an option, so he just keeps on breathing.  

Luckily and as promised, within a couple minutes, the nausea starts to recede and he relaxes into the bed, opening his eyes again, exhaling deeply. 

Danny’s sitting in a chair by the bed, a strange look on his face. 

“What?” he asks, although it sounds more like a croak. 

“You know you have nothing to prove, right?” 

What? “What?” What the hell is Danny trying to say? His brain’s trying to pound its way out of his skull and the rest of him is one giant ache and his partner wants to have a conversation _now_?  

“I’m saying that you,” Danny says, pointing at Steve’s chest, “have nothing to prove, by heading straight into the most dangerous situations and putting yourself at risk like you just did today.” 

“What the hell, Danny? We got to do this now?” 

“Yeah, we kinda do, because you need to understand something. You don’t have to play superhero, do all that shit you did today. We all know you’re still you. You know that, right?” 

Okay really, what? Maybe it’s the concussion and ensuing headache, but what just came out of Danny’s mouth makes no sense at all. “What are you talking about? I know I have a concussion but you’re not making sense.” 

“I’m making perfect sense. It’s you who’s being an idiot.” 

He sighs, bringing a hand up to rub at his aching forehead, wincing when his hand rubs at the cut over his eye and the one at his hairline. “So you’ve said. Look, Danny… Why don’t you just tell me what you think I did wrong this time, so I can get some rest, huh? My head hurts and I still feel a little sick so…” 

“Yeah, good job with the puking on Chin by the way, babe, really classy.” 

“Danny!” he snaps pissily. He’s not in the mood for this. He’s tired. He closes his eyes, his lids too heavy to stay open. 

“Two weeks ago. Your doc. He said you can _start_ resuming normal activity, meaning you shouldn’t even be on active duty yet, yet you never stopped, barely took a week off after you got out of the hospital. And then, _today_ you get blown off a roof, shot in the vest and take off after a suspect that’s got twenty-five pounds of solid muscle on you _by yourself_ and end up in an all-out, MMA style, to-the-death hand to hand smack down and even though you killed the guy, he managed to do a whole lot of damage before you put him down. You’re not Superman, Steve! Never were! And you’ve been trying really hard to prove you are ever since the transplant, hindering your recovery! Doc even said you’re healing slower than expected!” 

Steve blows out a frustrated breath that makes him wince when his broken rib grates. “That’s not—“ 

“Let me finish!” Danny says loudly over him, the tone and volume feeling like a screwdriver stabbing through Steve's brain. 

“And the only thing that’ll happen if you keep this up,” Danny drives on, “is you getting hurt again like it did this time, or you getting killed. So stop playing hero and stop, _just stop_ trying to prove something you don’t have to, except maybe to yourself.” 

Steve sighs heavily. “Danny, I didn’t go after Campbell because I had something to prove,” he argues, pressing a hand on his chest, trying to stabilise his broken rib. 

“No? So why didn’t you just shoot the bastard then, huh?” 

He blows out another frustrated breath, shaking his head and instantly regretting it. His broken rib screams in pain and his head throbs, the room swimming around him dizzyingly. He clenches his jaw against a fresh swell of nausea but it thankfully dies down as soon as he stops moving his head. “Because he got the drop on me, Danny,” he huffs, his voice thin, barely above a whisper. “I hit my head and I lost my gun. He had me at a disadvantage from the get go.” 

“That’s your own damn fault. You should’ve had your rifle with you, and your Sig as backup. Why the hell did you leave your rifle with Mendez, the SWAT guy, huh?” 

“I was out of ammo, Danny!” he growls. God, his head hurts. He just wants to sleep, make the pain go away. 

“No, you weren’t. You still had a half a mag left. I know because I’m the one who took it back from Mendez.” 

Whoa. Back it up. What? He pauses, blinks his eyes open. Thinks back. 

The fight itself is hazy in his memory, in a muddled, nightmarish sort of way. He remembers bits and pieces with stark clarity:  Campbell plowing into him from behind, a piece of plastic suffocating him, a pipe swinging at his head, staring into Campbell’s eyes as his last breath gurgled out of him, rebar sticking out of his chest, but that’s it. The rest is lost in a mix of distorted images and sounds and the shootout on the street is… lost in a thick fog of noise and color. He can’t recall what happened any more clearly than that. 

“I… I can’t… I don’t remember.” 

“Yeah well, Mendez said you went after Campbell with just your Sig.” 

He thinks hard, wracks his brain for fragments of memories but all he manages to do is ratchet up his already atrocious headache. 

“Close quarters, civilians around. Safer with the smaller caliber, is what I must’ve thought,” Steve summarizes, trying to get himself back into the mindset, back into the raid. His head aches ferociously now, pulsing waves of pressure pounding through his skull. He’s so incredibly tired all of a sudden. He wants to sleep. 

“Yeah well, whatever you thought, it landed you in a hospital bed. Again.” 

He closes his eyes, the fatigue suddenly overwhelming, his thoughts turning sluggish and muddled. His head aches so much it makes it nearly impossible to think. “M’ not trying to be Superman, Danny. S’just… Who I am,” he mumbles. 

Danny heaves out a monstrous sigh. “That’s the worst part. I know that.” 

He knows he’s missing something. Something important. It’s so hard to _th_ _ink_. His head hurts. He’s… sleep. He needs to sleep. 

“Sleep. I’ll be here when you wake up.” 

*#*#*#*#*# 

The sun is well on its way to its zenith when he wakes next and Danny is not by his bedside. Instead, there’s a neurology intern with a penlight standing by his bed. He grits his teeth through the concussion check, which he passes. It grants him his walking papers, with orders to rest for a couple of weeks, to let his bruised brain heal.  

He nods, tells the doc all the right things. 

There’s no way he’s taking two weeks off. A couple days, plus the weekend, maybe.  

Tops. 

He can hear Danny’s voice in the back of his mind, telling him to take care of himself, that he’s not superman. He wonders why it rings a bell of warming but he just isn’t sure why and thinking makes his head ache at the moment. 

He knows well  enough to at least not drive, not till the vertigo and blurred vision have abated a bit more. 

He calls Danny by reflex. 

The drive itself is pure hell. 

He wasn’t kidding when he told Danny he gets motion sick a while back, only usually, he has control over it. The concussion’s shot that control to shit and by the time Danny pulls the Camaro into his driveway, Steve’s barely holding on to the couple slices of toast he ate before he was officially released. 

He shoves the car door open and turns to sit sideways, head between his knees, drenched in sweat, nausea churning through his stomach badly enough he can feel it rising to the back of his throat. He spits out mouthful after mouth drool onto the cement driveway while his partner waits by his side. 

“Easy, babe, just relax,” Danny says, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. 

He knows he’s sitting still but everything feels like it’s moving and spinning around him and he feels like he’s perpetually falling, until his stomach’s had enough of the whole thing and finally rebels. 

He retches and the undigested toast splats messily between his spread feet. 

His broken rib screams in protest but he can’t stop his body’s reaction and he heaves over and over again till there’s nothing left in him. 

The nausea still doesn’t relent, not fully, because the vertigo doesn’t leave him even though his stomach’s emptied. He still feels like he’s perpetually falling, even with his feet on the ground and Danny anchoring him. 

“I’m taking you back to the hospital,” Danny says, next to his shoulder. He doesn’t quite know how, but he’s back to sitting up inside the car, one foot in the foot well, the other on the driveway, Danny by his side. 

“No. I’m okay,” he huffs out, tears wetting his cheeks from the strain and pain of the whole ordeal, drool and vomit drying on his chin. 

“Steve. You just threw up-“ 

“S’ vertigo from the concussion plus… motion sickness,” he cuts in. “It’s... passing,” he says. It is. Slowly, but it is. “Gimme… few minutes… sitting still,” he breathes, head laid back against the seat, keeping his eyes closed. 

It takes another fifteen minutes but the scenery finally stops moving when he opens his eyes and he stops feeling like he’s in a perpetual freefall. He’s still woozy enough that Danny has to help him inside and the sofa is as far as he goes. He feels too unsteady to risk the stairs and for once, Danny doesn’t argue. Besides, he’s too exhausted. 

Danny doesn’t leave though, despite Steve’s asking (begging, ordering and threatening) to just leave him be to sleep this thing off. Things are slow at the office, Danny says, so he just sprawls on Steve’s recliner, flipping on the TV. 

“You mind?” 

“No, so long as it’s not too loud,” he mumbles, already half asleep. How can he be this tired when he spent half the day passed out yesterday, slept all night and half the morning today? 

“Okay. We’ll talk about your idiotic, suicidal, self-sacrificing tendencies over dinner, then,” Danny says. 

“Hmm.” 

/*/*/*/*/ 

Something tugs at his consciousness. 

Someone. Calling his name.  

Reality feels distant, far away. He doesn’t really want to go back to it. Being awake means pain. He prefers sleep. 

“Gway. Sl’pn.” 

“Wake up, Steven. C’mon.” 

Something shakes his shoulder and pain flares in his chest. 

“Owww. What… fuck.” He opens his eyes as his hand instinctively braces his ribs. Danny’s blurred face slowly comes into focus, his darkened living room in the background. 

Right, he’s home. “Danny, what…” he says stupidly. He’s… a little confused. 

“Sorry. I’ve been trying to wake you for fifteen minutes. I was about to call an ambulance if I couldn’t wake you up.” 

“Oh… yeah. Sorry, I was… sleeping.” Right, the concussion. That’s why Danny’s got the worry face on. 

“Yeah, like the dead. How’re you feeling?” Danny asks, sounding as worried as he looks. 

He has to think about it. His head aches but it’s nothing like yesterday. His broken rib hurts but if he’s careful about how he moves, it’s not too bad. He’s bruised all over, sore, stiff, but he’ll live.  

“I’m all right. Headache’s better. I’m okay Danny. I was just… sleeping deep I guess.” 

“Good. Pizza’ll be here in fifteen. You got time for a quick shower and a change.” 

The thought of food makes his stomach growl but it’s uncomfortable and with the opposite of hunger. He ignores it. He’s got to eat if he wants to heal. 

“Yeah,” he says, sitting up with a grunt. God, he aches. The bruises have deepened and abused muscles have had time to stiffen. He _hurts._ He’ll definitely take the naproxen the hospital gave him with dinner. He stands slowly, keeping a hand on the arm of the couch, waiting out a head rush and the dizziness both. 

“I’ll be back in a few,” he grumbles, heading slowly up the stairs. 

Showering takes more than his usual three minutes. Moving too fast means vertigo, dizziness, pain and he ends up almost blacking out twice when he bends over too quickly.  

Okay, so maybe he got a little more beat up than he thought. Still, the hot water loosens his stiff and sore muscles and gets rid of the blood and grime of the last 36 hours. He's still careful when he towels off, wary of the cuts, bruises and bumps that he can feel all over his body. 

His busted rib screams with pain when he lifts his arms and he hisses through his teeth, grimacing as he pulls a clean shirt over his head. He'll ask Danny to help him wrap his chest after dinner to stabilize it a bit. The docs told him the break isn't likely to shift enough to puncture his lung, but if he wants it to heal quickly and properly, he'll have to take it easy for a few weeks and stay out of the field. 

The thought of being out of the game for that long grates on his mind like nails on a chalkboard. He _hates_ being on the sidelines. Only he knows he'd be a liability with an injury like that out in the field. A lucky or well-placed hit could take him out easily, and he can't chase down a perp like this. 

Hell, with his brain scrambled like it is, he's lucky to be able to stand on his own. He's thinking he's going to have to revise his four-days-off-max plan because if he's honest, he's not even sure he can make it back downstairs to eat, let alone be at work in three days' time. 

He's making his way down the stairs just as the pizza guy leaves. Apparently, his stomach's changed its mind about food, the smell wafting from the boxes making it rumble hungrily. 

They settle on the couch, side by side, eating the pizza straight out from the box and yeah, turns out he's starving and it's not really surprising. He hasn't really eaten in over a day, and what little he did eat ended up on the pavement or on his driveway, which reminds him; he needs to hose that mess off in the morning. He frowns in disgust at the memory. 

"Hey, you okay?" Danny asks him. "You're looking kinda lost inside your own head there babe." 

"I'm fine. Just thinking about hosing off the puke I left on the driveway tomorrow." 

"It's taken care of."  

He nods, thankful. God, he's tired, which is ridiculous because he's done nothing but sleep all day. He hears Danny inhale and he knows his partner's got something else on his mind, just by the careful way he's breathing and holding himself. 

"What," he asks. "Just, out with it, Danny. What's bugging you _this_ time?" 

"Okay, first, I gotta ask. Do you remember our conversation, when you woke up in the hospital, yesterday? About you not being Superman?" 

Steve huffs, thinks back. He does, but not in detail. "I do," he says, "but not every single detail. Danny look, I'm not stupid or reckless, okay? If you don't know that by now..." 

"That's not what this is about, babe!" Danny protests, spreading his arms wide, a slice of pizza dangling precarioulsy from his fingers. 

"Then what is it about?" 

"It's about me being worried about you not taking care of yourself!" 

"AKA being reckless, what you _just_ said this was _NOT_ about!" Steve argues back. 

Danny blows out a sigh, dropping his head and shaking it, all but throwing his uneaten slice of pizza into the open box. "I dunno, maybe. Look, Steve, I know, deep down, that you don't got a death wish, okay? But on the outside? Since you got shot? You haven't slowed down even one bit. You didn't take any time off after getting out of the hospital. You haven't been following post-op instructions. I know cause I had, essentially, the same ones! They opened me up the same as you, to take out a piece of my liver to give to you, so I had to do a lot of the same healing you had to! Less, even, cause I didn't almost bleed to death, or had three bullets go through my body. Neither do I have to take anti-rejection meds for the rest of my life, or run the risk of needing another transpl-" 

"Okay, okay, stop, I get it," Steve cuts in. "I get it. I know you worry. And I know all that, what you said. But..." Steve sighs, trying to get his thoughts in order. "Listen to me, Danny, okay? This is _my_ life, all right? I know what's at stake. But I will _not_ let what ifs rule it, I will not live in fear of what might or might not happen. I know my body, my capabilities." 

"This is not about that!" 

"Let me finish. I know the transplant changes things. But. I was seriously wounded before I met you, Danny, okay? When I was in the SEALs, I was awarded two Purple Hearts. They don't give those out for paper cuts, Joe used to say. So yeah, this isn't my first time coming back from something serious. I'm asking you to trust me on that. Can you do that?" 

Danny stays silent, looking at the floor and Steve knows he's thinking.  

He looks up after a minute, chewing on his lip. "What am I supposed to think when I hear the doc say you're healing slower than expected, that you're not supposed to be doing stuff you've been doing for _months_? How am I supposed to think you're taking care of yourself and that you won't end up dead because you're being a stupid and yes, reckless idiot who thinks he knows better?" 

"So you just don't trust my judgment, is that it?" he snaps, the loud exclamation making his head ache and his chest flare with pain. His hand involuntarily goes up to brace his chest and he closes his eyes, drawing in a careful, slow breath. 

"It's not about trust!" Danny says, throwing both arms up in the air. "I just worry about you okay? How is that a bad thing exactly?" 

"Worrying and treating me like I can't take care of myself are two different things, Danny," he answers quietly, easing back to rest against the couch cushions, eyes still closed. His head is starting to pound and the room's beginning to spin around him. He feels himself grow hot, sweat quickly beading all over his body. He swallows with the first tendril of nausea swirling through his stomach as the sensation of vertigo increases. He can feel the colour leeching from his face. 

"Hey, Steve. You okay?" 

He exhales slowly. "Headache." He lifts up a hand, making a swirling motion. "Room's... spinning." 

"Okay, just... take it easy. I'll be right back." 

He feels Danny move off the couch and hears footsteps moving through the room towards the left, hears water running in the bathroom, more footsteps. 

"Here. This'll help." 

Something cool and damp is gently placed on his forehead and he exhales in relief, the cold washcloth instantly pushing back the hard edge of the headache and extinguishing the burgeoning queasiness. He stays still a bit longer, waiting for the lingering dizziness to pass before lifting his head up off the backrest. 

"Thanks," he says, taking the washcloth off his forehead and placing it on the coffee table.  

"Better?" 

"Mostly." He grabs the prescription bottle Danny left by the pizza boxes twenty minutes ago and lifts it up. "One of these and I'll be fine.”  He opens the bottle and quickly swallows the prescribed dose. “Look, Danny, I appreciate your concern, you worrying about me, okay? I do. I promise you, I'm not doing anything to put my health in jeopardy, okay? I just need you to trust me on that." 

"And I need you to understand I will never not worry, because I care about you, and no matter what you say, I can never, _never_ find it okay for you to go against medical advice.  Why. WHY do you do that, huh? Even if you would've taken six months off field duty to recuperate, Five-0 would've been fine! You wouldn't have lost your place! Is that what this is about?" 

Is it? The question resonates inside his head, echoes inside his soul. When he got out of the hospital, the thing he felt most was loss; how his job, Five-0, had taken _everything_ good in his life, despite that conversation in the chapel, with that stranger. Why did he go right back to that job, possibly putting his future in jeopardy, if he felt that way about Five-0? 

"Steve?" 

He shakes his head, making the ache already there grow to the point of making it hard to think. 

"I don't know, Danny, all right? I don't know what to tell you," Steve murmurs eventually. 

“Just... I hate to see you hurt babe, and I see you not taking you care of yourself and taking risks, coming back too soon and all that, and then there's yesterday so I gotta ask. You get that right?” 

“I get it,” he says slowly. “I... It’s like... if I don’t get back out there... it’s like...” Steve lifts his back off the sofa, bends down to rest his elbows on his knees, dropping his head to rest his forehead into his hands. 

He draws in a deep breath and blows it out slowly. He presses his lips tightly together, thoughts circling back to that conversation with the stranger in the Chapel, at Trippler. “After I got shot? For a while, I felt like the job had taken everything good I had in my life. My parents, my girlfriend... the Navy and... it was taking my health and my future. But this job... Turns out I’m good at it, and I make a difference in people’s lives and it gave me you and your kids and Chin and Kono... our O'hana...” He turns to Danny, locking eyes with him. “It gave me my best friend. And for a while...” Steve blew out another long sigh, wincing when the sharp breath pulls on the broken bone in his ribcage. “For a while, Five-0? It was the only good thing I had. The only thing keeping the dark thoughts out of my head.” 

“Babe... Why didn’t you say anything?” 

Steve just shakes his head with a sad half smile. “I tried. All you wanted to hear was how I was ungrateful of your sacrifice. You weren’t interested in where my head was at or why I was acting the way I was.” 

He knows his comment has hit its mark from the way he sees Danny flinch out of the corner of his eye and the dead silence that follows it.  

They both sit in silence for a few minutes, until Danny draws in a breath. 

“I didn’t understand your attitude. I truly didn’t and of all the things that went through my head... I was so freaking _worried_ and I’d just watched you almost die... All I could think about was; I want to see him be safe. It’s like... I couldn’t see past that. I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you when you needed me.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me? You gave me half your liver, Danny. You saved my _life._ We both... We weren’t at our best after that. I said some things to you...” 

“Hey. I think we just established that street goes both ways. So, What do we do now?” 

“How about we do what we’re good at, and have each other’s back?” 

Danny smiles. “How about we try and do a little better than we’ve been? I’ll fuss a bit less and you’ll maybe tone down the crazy risk taking? You won’t even be useless babe. Worse comes to worse, you got a permanent position as Uncle Steve for Grace and Charlie.” 

Steve allows himself a chuckle. He screws his eyes shut when pain flares in his skull with it. 

“Okay. Okay. Look. Danny, I know you care. Thank you. I do appreciate it. I’m just... not used to it.” 

“I promise I’ll listen to what you’re not saying as much as to what you are saying. Just... Don’t hide anything from me, okay? Promise?” 

“Yeah, okay. I promise. Look, I’m gonna go lie down okay? Headache’s getting pretty bad.” 

“All right. Get some rest. I’ll clean up down here.” 

Three weeks later, when Steve’s still throwing up and getting dizzy spells, he knows something’s wrong. He does the sensible thing and gets checked out. When he gets the news about the radiation poisoning, he’s... floored. So he lies. 

He gives himself time. He prepares. 

He promised. He’d never break a promise to Danny. 

So he buys the chef’s hat and as he steps up to the edge of that bridge, he remembers Danny’s words; he’ll always be a part of Danny’s family, no matter what happens. 

No matter how many edges there are. 

Fin. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Phew. Looks ok?
> 
> How' d I do?


End file.
